Thomas still weighing options
(04/04/06 4:00am)
With numerous scholarship offers and qualifying test scores, most top-flight recruits pick a school before the NCAA's early signing period ends in November.
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With numerous scholarship offers and qualifying test scores, most top-flight recruits pick a school before the NCAA's early signing period ends in November.
With 17 seconds remaining in the first half, Virginia guard J.R. Reynolds had just put the Cameron Crazies into a nervous silence.
WORCESTER, Mass. - Playing their fourth road game in nine days, head coach Gail Goestenkors was concerned about a letdown against lowly Holy Cross. Instead, however, the Blue Devils responded with their sharpest minute of basketball.
Last summer, Marcus Lind was an unknown commodity, a Swedish exchange student playing American high school football for the first time. Several months later, however, Lind has become one of the nation's most hotly recruited offensive line prospects.
Although Duke's 1-10 record this season may have been discouraging, football fans can take solace in one point-the season has not drastically dampened head coach Ted Roof's success on the recruiting trail.
Last season, the Blue Devils were hampered by a lack of depth. Head coach Mike Krzyzewski took care of that problem in a big way during the offseason, hauling in five players to compose the nation's second-best recruiting class, according to scout.com.
North Carolina head coach Roy Williams finally got the monkey off his back last year by winning his first national championship in 17 seasons. But faced now with an unprecedented challenge, Williams' job may just now be getting difficult.
With two National Player of the Year candidates and one of the nation's best recruiting classes, virtually everyone is already penciling Duke into the Final Four. Everyone, that is, except the team itself. "We know we have a good team this year but we take it day by day," senior co-captain Sean Dockery said. "We are a team that knows we aren't the team that we want to be right now. Every day we are just trying to get better." Though No. 1 Duke features four seniors with extensive playing experience, this season's Blue Devil team will look very different from last year's version and implementing those changes will take some work, several players have said. Limited by a short bench and a number of injuries last season, the Blue Devils eventually fell victim to fatigue and foul trouble in their Sweet 16 loss to Michigan State March 25. Guard J.J. Redick, forward Shelden Williams and departed-senior Daniel Ewing were all among the ACC's top seven in minutes played per game. To remedy the problem, head coach Mike Krzyzewski brought in a quintet of freshmen he expects to provide productive minutes immediately. With the freshmen joining the fold, Duke's game plan will be different than it was a year ago. The sheer number of bodies, allows Duke to play its patented pressure defense for all 40 minutes. "We will pressure teams more," Redick said. "We didn't create a lot of turnovers last year and get out in passing lanes because we didn't have a lot of people and couldn't get in foul trouble. We played more of a passive defense and just packed it in. This year we are going to look to create more turnovers." The team expects those turnovers to spark an up-tempo, fast-breaking offense, a pace that suits the athletic Blue Devils. Point guards Sean Dockery and Greg Paulus are fast players who can push the ball up the court quickly, and the team has plenty of players who can finish on the break. Add Redick and forward Lee Melchionni's three-point shooting when opposing teams slow the first wave of the break and its easy to see how Duke's fast break could be extremely successful. "With us playing at a faster pace it will give us a lot of chances to run in transition which is one of my strong points," guard DeMarcus Nelson said. "The way our team is set up this year, it is really exciting for me because it will allow me to showcase everything I can do and contribute to the team. It will also allow a lot of players to do the same. On our team we have so many different talented weapons that this style of play will benefit everyone." Even when opponents manage to stop the Blue Devil break, the team's offense will be less rigidly structured. Duke's four contributing seniors-Redick, Williams, Dockery and Melchionni-have three years of experience running Krzyzewski's offense, allowing the coach to give them more freedom than he has given them in years past. Redick, in particular, has started all but five contests in his 103-game Duke career. As a result of this experience, he has been granted the freedom to change plays on the fly, leading him to describe himself as the "Peyton Manning" of Duke's offense, after the Indianapolis Colts' quarterback who enjoys similar privileges. "We'll give [Redick] the opportunity to make calls for himself out on the court, to call an audible," Krzyzewski said. "I don't want him easy to guard, and I also don't want to run 20 plays for him because then everybody stands around and watches." Of course, it takes work to put in all of those changes. Krzyzewski said Duke's veterans, who are used to a slower tempo, might have a tougher adjustment. But the more experienced players said the changes would not be too hard to handle. "Running more will give us an opportunity to speed the game up a lot," Nelson said. "What happens when you speed the game up is you don't think hard enough, and mentally you aren't sharp enough, or you make plays that you wouldn't normally make if you were playing at a slow pace. That is something we are getting adjusted to now." The new, faster tempo will give the Blue Devils a different look, but one important thing will be the same as last year. Redick and Williams-both preseason All-Americans-will be the team's focal points. The two have been fixtures in Duke's starting lineup for three years, starting a total of 190 games in their Blue Devil careers, including 22 NCAA Tournament contests. The pair gives Duke the nation's top defensive presence and the country's premier outside shooter. With the influx of freshman talent, Redick and Williams are sure to see a decline in their minutes, but Krzyzewski said they were forced to play too many last season and that reducing their playing time could actually allow them to score more points in fewer minutes. "They can play harder and a little bit shorter, and maybe, not that they're then going to sit out eight minutes, but they can come back in," Krzyzewski said. "They're still going to play in the thirties, but it will be in different segments." The five new freshman also make for an interesting team dynamic. All four of Duke's seniors have been named captains, the first time the Blue Devils have ever had four captains in one season, and sophomore Nelson is the only active recruited scholarship player who is not a freshman or senior. But the seniors have embraced their role as mentors to the freshmen, and Krzyzewski said teaching the younger players could help the older players reinforce their skills. Many of the older players grew close to the freshmen while the team was at Duke for summer workouts, and all of them tell stories about the rookies' idiosyncrasies. "I have a younger brother who is the same age so I just look at it like I am talking to my little brother," Dockery said. "It is something that I enjoy. It is like giving back. Chris Duhon did the same for me. Dahntay Jones and guys like that were there from the start and that is what I am going to do for these guys." The Blue Devil seniors need to make sure the freshmen are ready to play, if only because having more available players will allow Duke's returnees to avoid the long minutes and conservative play they were forced into last year. And of course, their talent is a welcome addition to an experienced group of seniors that expects to go very far this season. "It's so hard to set a goal of a National Championship because only one team can walk away happy then," Melchionni said. "But then you look at our talent on paper, and there's a big divide between us and the other teams this year, and of course, it would be a little bit of a disappointment if we don't make it there, or get to the National Championship, or win a National Championship."
Five-star football recruit Vince Oghobaase made the unusual decision to sign with Duke over football powerhouses Oklahoma and Miami, among others. He graduated early from high school to take part in the Blue Devils' spring practices. Now, after knee surgery, Oghobaase is finally one step closer to his long-anticipated Blue Devil debut.
For many Duke fans, the gloating from the Tar Heel faithful was already oppressive. After all, the defending national champions had only secured scout.com's best point guard, shooting guard, and two frontcourt players ranked among the nation's top 100 prospects in the class of 2006.
Trailing 14-10 with nine minutes left in the third quarter, Duke finally got the big break it had so desperately needed all season.
Another year, another quarterback controversy for the Duke football program.
Saturday's game against VMI featured several season firsts for the Blue Devils: It marked the first 100-yard rushing game by a Duke running back, the first touchdown pass by a Blue Devil quarterback, and the first game action for a number of players.
One of the benefits of having three top-flight verbal commitments this early in a recruiting season is that it allows a coach to focus his efforts on coercing just one or two additional star players to join his team. And with one of the nation's top five high school seniors on campus this weekend, head coach Mike Krzyzewski intends to do just that.
Build a foundation, and they will come. Or at least, that’s what Duke head coach Ted Roof is hoping for with an aggressive recruiting strategy that has already upped the Blue Devils’ talent-level significantly.
Things were looking good for the Blue Devils at the beginning of the second half. Although East Carolina was clinging to a 17-14 lead, Duke finally seemed to be putting its offense together, imposing its will on the East Carolina defense during a 12-play drive down to the Pirate four-yard line.
Going into their season opener, the Blue Devils boast a hungry young team with a revamped coaching staff. Loaded with young but experienced players, Duke is a team desperate to make a statement after a dismal 2-9 season.
After being one of the nation’s youngest teams last season, the Blue Devils are wiser and more experienced than a year ago. At practice, shoulder pads pop just a little louder—a sign of the fruits of an incoming recruiting class that ranks among Duke’s best in decades. And along the sideline, head coach Ted Roof and one of the ACC’s highest-paid coaching staffs direct the team on a mission to prove that the Blue Devils are better than the last-place finish most major publications have predicted for them.
Can Mike Schneider avoid making the big mistake?
Duke’s secondary took a hit when head coach Ted Roof announced that redshirt freshman cornerback Jabari Marshall will sit out indefinitely.